Cops save woman, 90, in predawn Newburgh fire

Monday

Sep 9, 2013 at 2:00 AM

BY JEREMIAH HORRIGAN

NEWBURGH — Four Newburgh cops rescued a 90-year-old woman from her burning Washington Street home in a predawn fire Sunday morning, officials said.

Fannie Muratore was asleep in the back bedroom of the only home she's ever lived in at 320 Washington Ave., when officer Charles Cruz was flagged down while on patrol near South Robinson Street and told a fire had broken out on Washington Street.

Arriving on the scene, Cruz notified the fire department and his colleagues.

Cruz tried unsuccessfully to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher where it apparently started, in an abandoned building at 322 Washington.

With the arrival of more cops, Sgt. Aaron Weaver ordered a building search of the Muratore residence.

Weaver and Officers Christopher Tabachnick, Melanie Mann and Timothy Gliedman forced their way in through the back door and found Muratore asleep in a smoke-filled bedroom.

The exterior walls of the two-story building were on fire by that time, Weaver said.

Weaver, Mann and Gliedman woke Muratore, found her shoes and walking cane and helped her safely out the front door, where they placed her in a wheelchair.

The fire destroyed both buildings.

Newburgh Assistant Fire Chief Stephen Giacco said the fire at one point affected the buildings at 318, 320 and 322 Washington St., enough to trigger three alarms.

Newburgh firefighters got a hand from about eight other departments, and crews were on the scene for more than five hours. The first call came in at 3:20 a.m., Giacco said.

Four firefighters sustained minor injuries in the blaze. All the utilities to the abandoned building were off; the cause of the fire is “not accidental,” Giacco said.

Later Sunday morning, Joe McLaren, Muratore's son-in-law, stood at the site and marveled at the job the crews – and the cops, in particular – had done.

“They did a great job; they saved her life,” McLaren said. “She didn't even have any smoke inhalation problems.”

Muratore's grandson Michael lived in the upstairs apartment but was out of town over the weekend, his father said.

“He looks in on her, she cooks for him; it's a family thing,” McLaren said.

The house itself was also a family thing, he said. It had been built 90 years ago by Muratore's father, Dominic Moresco.

The fire brought back memories of old Newburgh – a city where the sons of families like the Muratores and Morescos were well-known for their athletic accomplishments in baseball and boxing, he said.

Most of the physical reminders of those days were destroyed in the fire.

McLaren glanced sadly at a dozen or so scorched, water-warped, framed photographs he'd rescued from the building and placed in the back of his pick-up.